President Donald Trump claimed in an address on Thursday that newly unclassified documents prove that there was foreign interference in American elections. Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes scoffs at those allegations.
The documents in question are posted on the official White House website.
Trump said China nefariously obtained voter information and tried to affect the results of elections in 2018 and 2020 and ensure Trump couldn’t get reelected.
“They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn’t so hot when actually your president has done a great job and they did everything possible to do exactly that,” Trump said.
He also reiterated claims that noncitizens are voting in huge numbers, dead people are on voter rolls, voting machines can be easily hacked and mail-in voting isn’t safe to use.
“My message to Arizona voters is pay attention,” Fontes said. “Pay attention to the fact that this is the same grievance repackaged over and over and over again. Pay attention to the fact that there is no credibility because there’s no facts here. There’s no proof here. All these allegations are without any backup.”
Essentially, Fontes accused Trump of undermining voters' confidence in elections because he lost in 2020 and can’t concede it.
Trump said his administration is in the process of informing states whose data was compromised and will take action to ensure the upcoming elections are secure.
He urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose new federal requirements for voters to prove their citizenship.
Trump’s history of election fraud claims
Trump claimed he won the popular vote in 2016, which he did not. He also claimed without evidence that “millions” of people illegally voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump posted on Nov. 27, 2016.
In 2019, Trump tweeted that Google had “manipulated” votes for Clinton.
Wow, Report Just Out! Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Election! This was put out by a Clinton supporter, not a Trump Supporter! Google should be sued. My victory was even bigger than thought! @JudicialWatch
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2019
“My victory was even bigger than thought!” Trump wrote.
He provided no evidence.
Trump famously refused to concede his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 and made many different claims about how that election was “rigged” or “stolen.” He provided no evidence.
A mass of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, attempting to stop Congress from certifying the election for Biden. After Trump was reelected in 2024, he pardoned the rioters.
Those claims of the 2020 election being fraudulent led to Arizona Republican legislators commissioning a months-long audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results. The audit found that Biden actually won Arizona by slightly more votes than originally thought.
In 2022, several candidates Trump had endorsed lost their elections, including Republican Kari Lake — who lost the Arizona governor’s race to Katie Hobbs.
Lake, other candidates who lost their elections, and Trump claimed that those elections were stolen, too.
In 2021, the New York Times reported that Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, asked the Department of Justice to investigate “Italygate.”
That request was based on a conspiracy theory that the U.S. Embassy in Rome used satellite and military technology to remotely transfer votes from Trump to Biden in 2020.
No evidence was provided to support that theory.
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Trump suggested that someone would try to rig it.
“THIS IS ALREADY ON ITS WAY TO BEING ANOTHER RIGGED ELECTION!” he posted on Truth Social on Dec. 16, 2023.
After Trump won the 2024 election, he didn’t say it was stolen.
Trump endorsees in Arizona and denialism
Since 2020, Trump’s supporters have jumped on the bandwagon of claiming stolen elections, although many of his endorsees have leaned away from discussing election security since then.
Trump-endorsee Andy Biggs called it a “silly question” when reporters asked him whether the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen.
He, like many Arizona GOP candidates, says we can’t know for sure who won the 2020 presidential election.
Arizona election conspiracy theories
There have been several Arizona-related election conspiracy theories.
That includes the narrative that people acted as mules — illegally collecting ballots in swing states. A film about that theory called 2,000 Mules was debunked and the publisher issued an apology.
Another popular 2020 conspiracy theory was “Sharpiegate,” which alleged voters were provided with Sharpies at polling places and the ink made the ballots unreadable - something election officials debunked quickly.
Some audit advocates tried to assert that fraudulent ballots made with bamboo fibers were brought in from Asia and inserted into the election.
That did not happen.
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